windthread

didn't go this last summer/fall for walnut harvest.   Feeling like i have so much cloth.   Use what i have.  But then,   i think i said something about this a while ago…but then,  wished i had just a few walnuts to Sadden things…mute them.  

Yesterday,  when looking around,  saw that there are OLD walnuts where the horse trailer used to be,  at the edge of the pile of Poison Oak debris.   from the first summer here?   Had been in a plastic bag in the storage door of horse trailer and just removed and cast aside during an evacuation.  Forgotten through seasons,  Rain,  Heat,  Rain, Heat again.  Old and shriveled.   I put some in a pot and on the stove to boil and then simmer with that orange fabric that is so intensely orange,  the old patterned cloth that has PINK flowers,  hoping something different might happen with the pink.   There is a good subtle difference with the orange but not such a great change with the pattern….the pink stayed pink and the light creamy white that i like became walnuty.

 

 

that is easily seen on the Other side of the patterned.  But….things DID happen,  even when they had been forgotten so long,  they held their power.   This next season,  i'll go.   to Honor Walnut.   Even if it's just a few to use like this.  It was GOOD to have a pot boiling,  simmering with cloth.  some kind of Return that makes a difference in these days.

 

the next Invocation

she came just before 10 am.   Alyssia has 3 papers to complete by the weekend.   The mission was to have a day and STAY AWAKE so she would sleep well tonight since Alyssia is up,  well into and sometimes through the night.  We began by following the Goats.

 

she wants to do what everyone else is always doing.  in this instance,  taking my pic.  She directed me.  Stand on the Grandmother Rock.  Like that.   click.  She looked at it on my phone…and was satisfied.   It worked for me.  I hadn't combed my hair.  

 

 

we wandered slow,  looking at things.  She was the Leader,  choosing the paths we took.   We climbed things,  made our way through downed branches,  followed Goat Paths noting how we are taller than them,  but how they show the way.  She learned a trillion things…how to go slow,  one step at a time.  How it is to be afraid to do what you want to…ie climb up and along that huge downed tree that scared her in the spring,  how to take one foot up at a time,  wait,  think,  look,  wait more and then place the next foot,  the next hand forward,  to be afraid,  but breathe through it.   Over and Over because we had all day.  And these ferns…how Goats are not the Greatest because they eat them but we found some…sheltered in the brush.  Saved.

 

She almost made it.    Not quite.   At the Everything Table…around 6 oclock.  and then her mother came.

I think now,   in the quiet of her gone,  about all the trashcrap going on….wasting Life    There is so much to CARE FOR,  so many children,  how Emrie is so Free of so much that others are not….How I am.  How we had this so Great Day in the midst of

such grief

there are MANY of these now.   small forest gardens of them.   Reading the book,  looking on line,  it's a  Probably Edible,  but then the continuation….  "but don't mistake them for ……. so and so ".      I need a more sure identification.  i need a PERSON i can carry one to…..a PERSON.    Maybe next winter.    They smell so exceedingly wonderful….i can translate that to the pan…the butter sautee.    There are MANY.  They Vibrate.  and Sing a song of Earth and Rain.

this first pic….Typepad won't let me rotate and resize it so i don't know what it might appear like.   But they were pieces of cloth in one of the ziplocs that are across from me here at the Everything Table.  maybe 4 days now.  Several bags,  but i kept being asked to look at these.

 

i took them out,  from near the bottom of that bag and saw that many of them were gifted and so Ironed.   Into a pot on the stove to heat.

 

then out to dry.

 

Went Out to feed and then accompany the Goats a while as they went about doing their Goat things.  I saw that the Miners Lettuce has acquired its secondary heart shaped leaves,  that Talkie's feather sticks are extending and bursting into feathers.  SUN flowed down in a river of warmth.    Went to B garden to work at clearing space for the planting that will happen in just weeks now  and saw that the small  wild Yellows are beginning to appear every where.  And in between and through it all,  i looked and read about what's happening in this country i live in and thought about those monkeys.  Many of us of this generation will have seen them.  For me,  they were on my paternal grandmothers credenza.  I thought about the ….Privilege…people like me have.   To choose to not look.  To turn away in an effort of "self care" or whatever,  but to not look too much.   I need to look.   I need to hear and i need to speak.   

 

perennials,  along the road fence in front of B.    This,  their second year.   All summer they held their own but with the coming of the cool month of November they became Vitalized…not REvitalized but Vitalized…    Becoming FULL,  lush and a deep deep GREEN and when Rain began,  they blossomed.   And continue to Blossom.   so.  Third Chakra.

last night,  after dark fell,  i finally read the sentence i'd been  hoping for….the one that would Click !!!  

NYT   Jan 8, 2021   America in 2021  Racial Progress in the South,  a White Mob in the Capitol     Astead W. Herndon

"….the idea at the core of the American experiment – that,  in time,  the country's commitment to democracy will over take the history of intolerance".

Experiment.  the American experiment.   We are deep,  deep into the Experiment.    we are now,  with great momentum,  just beginning to see clear results from this     Experiment.   and momentum.   there is momentum  FROM those results that are creating the movement Forward.

I thought about all that had become so different in my own lifetime of 75 years….1945 to 2021….just my own life time.  I remembered my father.   looking at his face as he talked so casually in my childhood about niggers,  polacks,  jews,  japs. Casual conversation.   There was no reason for his racist concerns when he moved the family from Detroit to the suburbs where there were none of the above.   He was the only child of a very normal American family that had a home and a breadwinner.  But he held these sentiments.   So when i watch the people's faces now,   they are not foreign to me…i've seen their look before.  But…this is the American Experiment.  The experiment of

Democracy

that ALL are entitled to equal place.   just that.      Not a lot to ask,  right?   There's room.   We all fit.   Even them.  They can fit in their miserable pinched up places.   They're  not going to go away with the inauguration.  They live here too.   So..ok…live here. But give it up,  share.  This seems so elemental.  How you teach children.    And i think fortunately,  the young ones now are so past  so much of this.  Their concerns are of more substance.  like how will we Breathe.

 

 

Moulting.   it's been going on for a couple weeks.  Reached a crescendo a few days ago and now,  the slow Grow back.

not everything goes,  but the most beauty Full tho.  the long feathers of her mane,  the cape, leaving her lower neck bare,  exposing her.   Flight feathers.   And then just random ones here and there.   

 

and her Tail.  the hollow you see above….where her Tail normally gloriously is.   The stick like stumps with the whitish  papery wrapping are the new feathers.   

it's winter.  a California winter, yes,  but still,  the coldest month of the year, January and WET.   When Jenny was here last time,  we sat and watched her….Jenny said…"evolutionary design flaw.  it happens".   

 

P.S.   so i thought i'd done it.   Had all the pics here,   words.   Looked like a blog post might look.   Got that done earlier in the day.  Come back now to publish and here we are.  Pics missing and who knows what actually will appear once i  click publish.  Each month,  typepad takes an automatic payment from my bank account to pay my blog fee.   On the dot.  it's always there for them.  Months now…things are like this.   the Discus comment platform is sad.   So….i don't know.  

 

 

i have tried for a couple hours…no….way more, really, than a couple hours to post something here…trying to change the subject. I wanted to talk about Talkie.
but i won't happen.
so i don't know how this will come through either. but go look
NYT Stop Pretending "this is not who we are"
opinion
video
i hope you can find it. I'll show you Talkie, maybe tomorrow. or not.

when i woke this morning,  i lay there,  still,  for a while,   and then remembering what i had left before sleep.  I lay there,  thinking that i would need to be mindful.   to not be consumed.   I first held this Cloth.  and then i began reading.   Through the day i kept reading,  and kept picking up this Cloth that is so weightless,  so Beauty Full…i wish i could photograph it as it IS,  a Green cloth….the thin,  so thin Deb Lacativa linen that is many nuances of GREEN that does not appear at all that way in these pics,  i don't know why and no matter what i do,  i cannot get  to the truth of the  Green….and i thought how i need somehow to find some balance.   Because i had all the ingredients at the same time which is unusual,  i cooked.   Aloo Gobi Matar and the fragrance swirled and i read and i held the Cloth and i acknowledged that i am very Off…..

for a long time there's been so much to absorb about  ……….civil discourse……   how to bring empathy and kindness into spaces of complete disagreement…finding the common ground

I watched videos  of yesterday.  Watched people there.  Watched the one who thought he was sitting at N  Pelosi's  desk,  putting his feet on it and  "scratched my balls"  ….leaving a note "for the bitch"   and i thought…where is our common ground.   And as i continued watching i realized that probably many if not most of the individuals that surged through those halls were feeling JOY.   That for them,  it was a great Success.    a great success.    an achievement greater than anything they might even have hoped.   And this brought me to a halt.    There is mob mentality.  There is  hive mind.   but what i was seeing was Happiness.  . I thought about how they took his day….Raphael Warnock's Day.   As quickly as it was there,  it was stolen.   

Common Ground.   Civil Discourse.

i need to find some kind of balance but i also need to CARE deeply.  To turn away dishonors so much.  

So this is where i am.

 

 

i woke this morning to this Cloth,  one of the ones i call Invocation.    I clicked and saw that Rev. Raphael Warnock had WON a seat in the United States Senate.   I got dressed and fed the Goats and went on down to sit with the grapefruit tree,  John Lewis and i told her…..him….we will never give up.  We watched Morning come.  Such joy.  It was an Emrie day and we did what we do,  today adding clay.  all the while from my sweatshirt pocket the streaming of occurrence  in Washington DC

i am speechless.

the Beauty.   the Beauty of Rain….i would never have guessed.   3 years ago i came here and was stunned by it…Rain…..i was cringing.    I kept saying i was a desert person.   that i couldn't find my way in Rain.    Here,  this morning,  the Beauty of it dripped and seeped and i felt so much Love.   I am an Earth Person.   i love saying that.   I am an Earth Person.